A numeric pager is one of the most common types of pagers in current use. A sender of a message to a numeric pager first places a telephone call by entering the pager identity on the keypad of a telephone for transmission to a paging terminal. The sender then enters numeric data information on the telephone keypad for transmittal to the paging terminal for further transmittal by the terminal to a radio transmitter for final transmission to the numeric pager. The numeric data is displayed on the pager display screen, usually a liquid crystal display (LCD). Many types of numeric pagers have the capability of presenting alphabetic characters or alphanumeric characters (alphabetic combined with numeric) processed from radio signals received by the pager that are directed to numeric codes linked to canned messages in memory that are in turn sent to the pager display for presentation as alpha character or alphanumeric character messages on a pager display screen. The common pager display screen usually has a capacity of twenty characters. Numeric pagers are inherently limited to the amount of information they convey by the very fact that numerals present only themselves, for example, a telephone number.
Many pagers can display canned alpha-numeric messages contained in the memory of the pager placed in pager memory at the factory. In a variation of such pager memory devices, it is also known that custom messages can be programmed by a user into a pager memory. In both cases, when a particular numeric code is entered at the telephone keypad by a sender, the canned alphanumeric message or the customized alphanumeric message is then displayed on the pager screen. Nonetheless, such canned and programmed alphanumeric messages are inherently inflexible in that non-canned and non-customized alphanumeric information cannot be presented on the pager screen.
In another type of pager communication, alphanumeric messages are presently being sent to pagers by "word message pagers" transmitted a live dispatch service, and by "word message entry devices", which have alpha keyboards and are connected to telephones. Typical of the word messenger pagers is Wordline of Motorola. Typical of word message entry devices are Quickword and Wordtrek of Motorola. The most recent alpha pager screens are large enough to present 240 characters per message.
With reference to FIG. 1, the standard operation of transmitting a numeric message to a numeric pager is as follows. A numeric message, commonly a telephone number to be called, is dispatched from a standard Dual Tone Multifrequency (DTMF) telephone 10. The sender of the numeric message first dials the pager number on a telephone keypad 12 by keystroke entry of twelve telephone keypad keys 14 including numeric keys 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 0 and the symbol keys of the asterisk (*) and pound (#) so as to access the public telephone network 16 and an automated paging terminal 18 connected to an antenna 20. The Personal Identification Number (PIN) of the particular pager to be reached is then entered on the telephone keypad along with the numeric message. A radio transmission from antenna 20 broadcasts the PIN, which activates a targeted numeric pager 22. The numeric message is then broadcast to numeric pager 22 where it appears on pager screen 24. Keystroke operation of the asterisk (*) on telephone keypad 12 results in the display of a dash (-) 33 on pager screen 24. For the purposes of telephone 10 to numeric pager 22 operation, the alphabetic indicia and the pound symbol (#) on telephone keypad 12 are ignored.